Internet woes leave customers fumingProviders blame each other as access slows to a crawl

by Jennifer Kavanaugh

As Internet customers curse their computer screens, officials
involved with bringing high-speed Internet access to Palo Alto are pointing
fingers at each other over a series of outages that disrupted access for
two weeks.

For the second time in three months, service on the high-speed ISP Channel
Internet access slowed to a crawl, or shut down entirely, during the first
couple of weeks in October. It is the second time the system failed since
the beginning of August, when ownership of the cable lines transferred
from the locally owned Cable Co-op to AT&T Broadband & Internet Services.

Officials from
the three companies--the ISP Channel, Cable Co-op and AT&T--have offered
three different versions of why more than half of ISP's 3,000-plus subscribers
have been cut off from the Internet at various times since the beginning
of October.

But whatever the cause or the culprit, insiders
agree that the stoppages have been a source of frustration and embarrassment
for this high-tech area, where many of the customers can reasonably claim
to have invented some of the Internet technology they're paying for ISP
to provide.

"A lot of the people feeling the pain have a lot of clout and a lot of
contacts... There will be hell to pay," said Bob Moss, who served on Cable
Co-op's board of directors.

The
ISP Channel, for its part, would not publicly discuss blame for the problem.

"Until the problem is finally solved, it's not appropriate for
anyone to point fingers," said Mark Heyer, ISP's director of customer
communications.

As of Monday afternoon, Heyer said "it remains
to be seen" what the true problem is. He confirmed that ISP did have a
technical problem last Friday, but said it didn't have much to do with
the outages overall.

"There was a router problem," Heyer said.
"To the extent that this disrupted service, it didn't have much to do
with the problems people were having."

Heyer said the company
would give customers credit for lost service to go toward their future
bills.

Customers said last week that they're frustrated by the
Internet outages and the lack of help they have received when calling
the ISP Channel or dealing with AT&T.

"The one thing their system
is exceptionally good at is sending out bills," said Colin Mick, a Palo
Alto resident who works with computer networks. "But acknowledging responsibility
for poor service isn't something they do very well."

Former
Cable Co-op board member Bob Moss said the quality of Internet service
customers have received from the ISP Channel has diminished noticeably
after the debt-ridden Cable Co-op sold its assets and turned the operation
over to AT&T on Aug. 1. While ISP provides the national Internet service,
the local carrier--now AT&T--has a contract to maintain local cable lines
and wire the service into homes and businesses.

According to
Moss, AT&T had little to no experience managing Internet service with
Cable Co-op's system of coaxial cables, and failed to give some of Cable
Co-op's technicians satisfactory job offers. Those technicians left, Moss
said, and AT&T didn't have the necessary staffing and didn't conduct proper
maintenance of the system, which he said suffers normal wear and tear
often caused by weather conditions and temperature changes.

"The
system requires attention to details," Moss said. "AT&T doesn't have it."

AT&T has a different explanation for the Internet problems.
According to Andrew Johnson, a spokesperson for AT&T, the company inherited
a system that was old and had not been well maintained. He said AT&T is
doing the best it can patching up and maintaining the system until it
installs more modern technology in three years.

"The used car
is not running well," Johnson said. "There are some problems in the system
we bought from Cable Co-op."

When asked why the same system
hadn't failed as extensively under Cable Co-op's control, Johnson said
the problems have inevitably resulted from Cable Co-op's lack of maintenance
resources over the years. He insisted that AT&T had enough qualified people
to run the system and did offer jobs to qualified Cable Co-op technicians,
but some of them chose to leave anyway.

"A lot of that has come
home to roost and that's independent of the sale to AT&T," Johnson said
of the problems.

While Johnson attributed "25 percent" of the
problem to AT&T, he said that 75 percent of the problem could be traced
to ISP's end. Johnson said the ISP Channel had a "catastrophic" server
problem that disrupted service last Friday.

Some customers said
they may have to look elsewhere for relief. The city of Palo Alto, which
granted AT&T the right to operate a cable franchise in the city earlier
this year, doesn't have the authority to regulate Internet service and
respond to consumer complaints--only the federal government can do that.

"But that's not to say we can't do some things," said Councilman
Bern Beecham. One thing the city could do, he said, is encourage other
Internet companies to come into the city to stimulate competition.

Other
frustrated customers are placing their hopes on the fiber-optic ring built
by the city. If that becomes available for widespread use, private Internet
companies will be able to lease space on the city's system and provide
service to any home or business in the city, further encouraging competition.

The city is expected to present a business plan for the fiber
ring late next month.